The B.C. government spent more than $350,000 on a social media campaign during the teachers’ strike last year.
The contract was with Kimbo Design, a Vancouver advertising company, and includes $50,000 for promoted tweets, $73,000 for Facebook posts, $6,250 for Google Adwords, $160,000 for digital and display advertising, Freedom of Information documents posted online show. There are also production charges and service fees, for a total of 4352,644.57.
The ads were targeted at teachers and ... Read More …

Premier Christy Clark, who has displayed a sharp wit on Twitter in the past, took a nasty shot at fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs on the social media site this morning.
After news broke that three Toronto fans are facing charges for throwing their Maple Leaf jerseys on the ice during Toronto’s 4-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday, Clark Tweeted out this gem:
#jerseygate? About time. Most Canadians would rather ... Read More …

How does Seattle Seahawks punter Jon Ryan wind down after helping his team beat the Green Bay Packers to reach the Super Bowl for a second straight year?
By watching The Bachelor and sharing his thoughts on Twitter.
While Iowa farmer Chris Soules is ostensibly the star of the season, and is trying to whittle 30 women down to one, he’s been somewhat upstaged by Jillian Anderson. Or more accurately, Jillian Anderson’s bottom — which ... Read More …

The most annoying thing about The Bachelor – and we’re not talking about Chris’s giggle?
Those girls who, each season, turn into emotional wrecks because the man they’ve known for a nano-second has kissed multiple women.
Really? Have you never seen the show before? Let me guess, you think the fantasy suite has bunk beds, right?
Thanks to Jimmy Kimmel, we now know exactly where bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe stands on the issue.
The American talk ... Read More …

Just when it looked like we’d have to stop making fun of The Bachelor franchise for its inability to convert proposals into marriages, word this week that Andi Dorfman and Josh Murray have called it quits.
“After several months of being engaged and working on our relationship, we have decided that it’s best for both of us to go our separate ways,” read a widely released statement from their rep. “We are very sad that ... Read More …

When Alfred Hermida was working for the BBC in Cairo in the 1990s, it was only because he was a foreign correspondent that he was deemed important enough to have access to the government’s controlled Internet service, and then only for an hour a day.
Less than 20 years later, he watched with the rest of the world as protesters, rallied through a call on social media, took to the streets in Cairo in a ... Read More …

Conan O’Brien rarely fails to make this comedy-lover laugh, so it caught me off guard last Tuesday when the red-haired TV host had me on the verge of tears.
Five years ago, after NBC kicked O’Brien to the curb when ratings slipped at the venerable Tonight Show, Coco got stuck in a depression-like funk.
Instead of therapy or drugs, the Irishman’s “miracle cure” came in the form of a bright orange and green bicycle, ... Read More …

Vancouver Sun city hall reporter Jeff Lee reports that the Non-Partisan Association, the centre-right civic party looking to wrestle control away from mayor Gregor Robertson’s centre-left Vision Vancouver slate, has chosen its candidate for the November election.
The NPA board member actually selected the candidate last Thursday, but for some reason they won’t be telling anybody who it is for another two weeks.
From Jeff Lee’s story: “On Thursday night the 14-member board interviewed three ... Read More …

Justin Timberlake will be on the Rogers Arena stage in Vancouver Thursday for the latest stop on his 20/20 Experience World Tour.
Get the latest from inside the event as The Vancouver Sun’s music critic Francois Marchand live tweets from his seat – and then check back at vancouversun.com after the show for the full review.
You can also join the fun on Twitter using the hashtags #JT2020BC and #VanSunMusic.
Are you ... Read More …

Less than a day after Twitter announced it was going to make it impossible for users to block followers, the company reversed itself and re-instituted the blocking feature.
Faced with a massive online backlash, led by people who had been harassed and threatened through the micro-blogging service, Twitter took only hours to amend the amendment that had put an end to blocking.
“Earlier today, we made a change to the way the “block” function of ... Read More …

As consumer complaints go, it was epic.
The YouTube video posted in 2009 by Canadian musician Dave Carroll with his song United Breaks Guitars, chronicling a customer service disaster by the airline, which, as the song points out — broke his guitar — sounded an alarm bell through corporate boardrooms.
It chalked up millions of hits online and became a textbook case demonstrating how disgruntled consumers can make their voices heard through social media.
However, ... Read More …

A story of mine running in Friday’s paper reported — not all that surprisingly — that Vancouver Sun political columnist Vaughn Palmer and Global TV political reporter Keith Baldrey are followed by more B.C. MLAs on Twitter than anybody else. The two veteran political journalists tied for first place with 67 MLAs each, out of 78 MLAs active on Twitter. There are 85 MLAs total in B.C.
The story was inspired by this post in ... Read More …

Take two apps and call me in the morning.
Dr. Kendall Ho, an emergency room physician at Vancouver General Hospital and director of the University of BC’s eHealth Strategy Office, is turning to mobile apps as a way of helping patients help themselves.
In a newly launched project Health-e-Apps, with the tag line, ‘improve your health in a mobile minute,’ the eHealth strategy office is reviewing health and wellness apps and encouraging smartphone and ... Read More …

Are you addicted to your smartphone?
In British Columbia, more than one in four people between the ages of 18 and 34 say they can’t live without it.
That’s among the findings of an online poll by Insights West and mobile agency ioamota, conducted among 849 British Columbians.
Asked to choose from among a list of things they’d be prepared to give up for three days, 30 per cent said they’d be okay without their ... Read More …

Social media has proved an invaluable tool in all sorts of emergencies but Twitter’s lockdown of the Calgary Police Twitter account Thursday delivered not only a blow to police communications but to Twitter’s reputation as a go-to source in a crisis.
The Calgary Police Twitter account, which the department had been using as a communications tools in the midst of the flooding crisis, was locked when it reached a daily limit. A quick-thinking constable Jeremy ... Read More …

Vancouver’s Lululemon was among brands that lost no time taking advantage of Instagram’s newly announced video.
This 15-second video posted on Instagram following Thursday’s announcement of the newly added video feature for iPhone and Android apps garnered almost 16,000 likes and close to 700 comments within a few hours of its release.
The new feature is competition for Twitter’s video app Vine but there are several differences that could give Instagram an edge with users.... Read More …

Twitter is hiring computer science graduates for a “global centre of excellence” the social networking company is opening in Vancouver.
In an ad posted on its job site, the San Francisco-based company called for computer science graduates “to work on some of the most interesting technical challenges in the industry today.
“Twitter is creating a global center of excellence in Vancouver for computer science graduates to work on some of the most interesting technical challenges ... Read More …

Northern Voice, which launched in 2005 as Canada’s first blogging conference is celebrating nine years of bringing together weblogging and social media specialists with this year’s conference June 14th and 15th at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre and the Museum of Vancouver.
Already close to 200 people have signed up for the 250 spots available and event organizer Kemp Edmonds said this year’s conference reflects how far online publishing has progressed from its early days ... Read More …

Is your dad a travel dad? A time-strapped dad? A sporty dad? An armchair sports dad?
Whatever description fits we’re pretty sure the dad in your life isn’t hoping for socks or a tie this Father’s Day. Here’s our Father’s Day tech gift guide that has something for every dad — from the conventional to the offbeat.
Here is a video with our shopping tour for dad and some gift ideas for tech toys for ... Read More …